


The Truth Of The Legend

by BeastOfTheSea



Category: Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 08:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/685149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeastOfTheSea/pseuds/BeastOfTheSea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They sent a ten-year-old boy to do a hero's job; what did they expect?</p><p>Had Rauru truly expected a child, even in a man's body and armed with a legendary sword, to succeed where all the greatest knights of the kingdom had failed?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Truth Of The Legend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chordatesrock](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=chordatesrock).



> **Disclaimer:** Nintendo owns The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I'm just a fanfic writer.
> 
> Written for the prompt _Canon AU. Zelda is the hero who saves the world._

They sent a ten-year-old boy to do a hero's job; what did they expect?  
  
Had Rauru truly expected a child, even in a man's body and armed with a legendary sword, to succeed where all the greatest knights of the kingdom had failed?  
  
Perhaps he died in the forest where he had spent the first ten years of his life _(all his life, really)_ ; perhaps he died amidst lava and flames. Perhaps he drowned; perhaps he was smashed into a bloody pulp at the hands of a ghostly drummer. Perhaps he suffocated in the shifting sands of the desert, or perhaps he was slain by the blade of Ganondorf himself - Does it really matter?  
  
What matters is that, in the end, the girl who had lived and suffered through seven years of Hyrule's ruin was the one who avenged them, was the one who stood on her own two feet and cast the King of Evil beyond this world, was the one left alone to pick up the pieces of her shattered realm... What matters is that both the guilt and the redemption of her childish schemes to save Hyrule belonged to her, and her alone.  
  
But she could not bear to be hailed as the hero, not when she felt that the half the blame for the calamity that had been brought upon Hyrule rested upon her own wearied shoulders; so she made up a tale about a brave young Hero of Time and told all who would hear that it was the truth, and let them know that her role in all of this had been as an assistant, at best. And they believed it - and to her, _that_ was all that mattered in the end.  
  
Who knows - perhaps Ganondorf had left only a small, broken body bleeding out on the Temple of Time's pristine marble tiles as he walked forward to claim the power of the Sacred Realm, and there never had been a Hero, really. Perhaps there was only an adolescent clad in the garb of a Sheikah who wrenched the Master Sword from its pedestal when the appointed time came at last, and perhaps the one that freed the Sages and slew Ganondorf's abominations did not stand straight and true, his eyes ever fixed on the goal ahead and his face set in a grim mask of determination, but instead slunk in the shadows and stabbed foes in the back, eyes ever shifting about in search of pursuers and face hidden behind a mask made of bandages and magic.  
  
Does it matter?  
  
Ultimately, all that matters is what is carried down in myths and legends - the legend of Link, the brave young _(always young, always far too young)_ Hero of Time.  
  
The legend of Zelda can wait for another age.


End file.
